Vijayanagara

At the moment I’m finding it difficult to avoid the feeling that I should be using every waking moment to work. Between staying on top of my teaching commitments (including familiarising myself with two new units), working to map out Bangalore’s digital liberties activism, and trying to find useful ways to contribute to the Alipi project, sometimes I feel guilty even sleeping.

Happily, a couple of weekends ago some friends here convinced me to tag along on a trip to Hampi, where serious work is underway preserving the Vijayanagara site. Pretty much everything I know about the site comes from the Wikipedia article: In the 15th century, Vijayanagara was the largest city in India, and the second largest in the world. Its metropolitan area spanned around 540 square kilometres, including forts, sacred sites, smaller settlements, and farms. These days, the ruins are being restored using funding from UNESCO and other sources.

As these photos from Dipti Desai show, the site is amazing. I only spent a couple of afternoons there, and I think even if I’d had a week I wouldn’t have been able to see everything. For those of you who won’t get a chance to explore the site itself there seem to be a few projects underway to start sharing images and video of the site online, including the Vijayanagara Research Project and Indian Digital Hampi – look for video of the musical pillars!